[etni] Fwd: Forms debate

From: ETNI list <etni.list@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Etni <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 06:40:03 +0200
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Esther Revivo <estherrevivo@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Forms debate

Here are my two cents:
Barry Praag wrote, "This new demand puts unprecedented pressure on
already overworked teachers and coordinators not to mention a school
system which is groaning under the strain of trying to administer it
all....... I personally know of school counsellors who have left
school over this and others who only counsell kids in the JHS so as
not to have to deal with all the (excuse my French as we Brits say)
BS"

I agree!! My Mom was a guidance counselor and h.s. teacher in NY State
for 45 years! She told me about 5 years before finally retiring that
the paperwork and yada-yada-yada meetings had become so time consuming
and frustrating that she was considering leaving on pension before she
really wanted to. She said that the system had lost sight of the true
goal-- educating young people. They sat HOURS filling in forms for LD
pupils and debating the validity of this or that request for
'hatamot.' This was in the mid-1990's.

I believe that a great many of the negative aspects of Israeli society
have been imported from the USA and other places abroad. i.e. drug
use-- in 1995 there were kids 'dealing' in the elementary school
playground in my hometown. Regarding promiscuity: Mom had  a whopping
15 pupils who had babies during the last year that she taught. Yes
that is 15! And this was 16 years ago!! So I believe that this LD
form-filling business has traveled across the ocean perhaps mistakenly
conceived to be a necessity to prove we are taking LD kids seriously!
(My Mom took them very seriously; she had 2 now adult grandchildren
that she spent hours working and studying with!)

I feel we are getting so bogged down with paperwork (that the system
demands of us) that we lack the time to do what we became teachers to
engage in: Teaching children and molding young minds! I still love
teaching after 34 years. But I admit that I'm glad I'm at the latter
end rather than earlier part of my teaching career because I don't
like a lot of what I see coming our way! (I exclude the Smartboard
which is one recent development in our area that is wondrous.)

Shavua Tov- Esther Revivo
[etni] Fwd: Forms debate

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